Both Sides Now
by Abagail Snow
Summary: The rule to their friendship was simple. You just didn't talk about it. Modern Day.


_I posted this on tumblr for Valentine's Day, and thought that I'd post it here too. Check me out on tumblr (__**absnow**__) for the latest drabbles._

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It was on a Sunday when he said it to her.

They were having breakfast at the Embassy Suites. Neither one of them were guests, nor had they ever been. Rather, Peeta had noticed one afternoon from the parking lot – shared between the hotel and the mall, that the side entrance was left wide open, and easily accessible without passing the front desk.

The Embassy Suites Manager's Reception was what originally drew them in. It was almost legendary. An amenity that offered guests complimentary cocktails _every_ night? Peeta wasn't sure why people didn't simply _live_ there year round. He and Katniss were only eighteen at the time and didn't look a day older, yet, when they stepped up to the bartender, he nodded at them without question, and waited for them to order.

Peeta wasn't a connoisseur by any means. In fact, the only beer he'd ever drank was PBR, because that was the cheapest six pack his older brother could pick up to optimize the term, "keep the change." He was almost certain that not only did the Embassy Suites _not _carry PBR, but to ask the bartender for anything that "tasted like Pabst" would be like saying that the year 1992 was a great one to be born in. Instead he mumbled the title off one of the labels lined up on the bar and hoped he pronounced it correctly.

Katniss had selected the Riesling because beer was too bitter for her preference, and their house Riesling tasted like sugar water. It contrasted greatly with her usual stubborn, low maintenance attitude, but Peeta had seen her pour enough cases of sugar packets into her morning coffee to see through her facade.

They were sipping on their second rounds, still feeling all too pleased with their feat, when they noticed some workers wheeling out the breakfast cart to set up for the morning's meal. It wasn't the general continental breakfast that they were accustomed to according to the poster on the wall. No. This was pancakes, and fresh fruit, and thick cuts of bacon, and omelets or french toast made to order. This was a breakfast from the heavens.

"We should come back tomorrow," Katniss said, her eyes lingering on the breakfast spread as if she'd never had a meal before.

And so they did, once every month.

That was until Peeta decided to make his insane declaration on one particular Sunday.

Katniss was cutting into her second serving of stuffed french toast, a stream of amber syrup dripping from her fork as she went to capture the bite. There wasn't anything particularly stunning, or remarkable about her in this moment. Her face was clean of makeup — as it usually was, the polo of her Dick's Sporting Goods uniform was ill fitting, and although the day had only just begun, her braid was already nearly unraveled with wiry wisps of hair framing her face.

To state it simply, she looked like Katniss Everdeen. And that was why he said it.

Peeta was usually one for grand romantic gestures, and his way with words was considered prolific amongst most who knew him. He could riddle together the words he was gifted with like a beautiful painting. Expressive and genuine. A depth that was unparalleled.

With Katniss, however, he kept it brief and to the point, because that was the language she preferred.

"I love you."

Now, to truly understand the magnitude of this confession, one would have to look back in time much further than this breakfast ritual. Not so far back that you would collide with Peeta's initial conception. That was a story he wouldn't care to relive, even for the benefit of this one.

Peeta Mellark marked the beginning of his life with another date and time entirely.

August 29, 1997 at 9:37AM and 23 seconds. Approximately.

It was at this time during music class, when their teacher had requested for someone to sing the Valley Song, and a girl with a pair of matching braids and a red, plaid dress had nearly jumped out of her seat to volunteer.

To most trained ears, her voice would be considered amateur, off pitch, and slightly grating. But to Peeta Mellark, it was as if every word left her lips like a bird in flight, gliding around the confounds of the class room in a beautiful dance just for him.

As she grew older, her voice grew deeper, fuller, sultry even. She wasn't as enthusiastic to sing anymore, but he still caught her murmuring along with the radio, or singing in her bedroom when she thought no one could hear. Katniss claimed to hate musicals, yet seemed to know the words to every song, and sang those most often. A fact that Peeta became increasingly aware of every time he relieved himself to the song "He Plays the Violin."

Katniss's voice wasn't the only spell she had managed to cast on him. There was so much more to her magic that he couldn't even quantify.

She was fiercely competitive, even against herself. Peeta could still recall moments in his bedroom, when he would be reviewing notes from AP English, while she sat at his computer, alternating left and right clicks on his mouse at a furious pace to beat a game of Solitaire in under 30 seconds (she did, five times in fact.)

Her competitive edge also made her a bit rebellious, but not the usual kind. When Panem County installed speed cameras at the bottom of the hill over on Hob Street, while most motorists were slowing down to 10 below the speed limit when passing, Katniss found out that the camera triggered at 12 miles over, and spent the rest of the summer barreling down the hill on her bicycle, determined to crack 37. She never quite reached it, but when she wiped out at the bottom of the hill and broke her arm, Peeta spent the rest of the summer sitting on her couch, watching the Soap Opera line-up that Katniss claimed to have never heard of before, even though she knew a decade's worth of plot lines.

The most frustrating thing that Peeta loved about Katniss though, was that she was stubbornly loyal to her her word. When things had shifted in their relationship (a territory that to this day had yet to be clearly defined,) she refused to kiss him at red lights, because she felt that some things in life had to remain a mystery. Generally this wouldn't bother Peeta, and he would almost find that sort of sentimentality to be sweet, especially from someone like Katniss. The problem was, he _really_ liked kissing her, and on their way home from work, there was an intersection right before this set of train tracks, where the endless kind of cargo trains would pass through on a somewhat regular basis, leaving the light red for a good ten minutes. He'd thump his fingers against the steering wheel, while sneaking quick glances in her direction, and Katniss would just hum softly to the radio in a way that drove him absolutely crazy, blissfully unaware of the effect she had on him.

She wasn't saving him the mystery at all. She was holding on to the one thing that separated them from being friends and from being that other thing. That unspoken thing that they knew to never talk of.

That was until Sunday.

The words hung between them, swallowed by the intermittent chitchat at the bustling tables around them.

Katniss's fork fell from her grasp and hit the heavy ceramic plate before her. She pushed her chair back from the table, standing abruptly with enough force to rattle the salt and pepper shakers.

"I've got to go to work," she said, her expression clouded with an unreadable emotion.

Peeta felt his heart deflate with each passing step that separated them. It was a feeling that haunted him for the rest of the day, up until the moment his shift at Panera ended, and he knew that he would have to see her again.

Knowing Katniss, she would probably walk the 8 miles along the narrow, icy sidewalks to get home, rather than share the cabin of Peeta's beat up Pontiac, yet when he wandered out into the parking lot at dusk, there she was, leaning against the passenger door.

He silently opened the door for her, and that silence remained as he pulled the car onto the main drag of Capitol Highway.

Peeta wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and die from the radiating contempt that she exuded. Katniss was famous for her stone hearted scowl, but this was something else. This was something that inspired a terror that he had never known. He let out a sigh of relief at every green glowing traffic light they passed, content that his misery would soon end. But as they approached the intersection that met the train tracks, he watched yellow flash to red before the crossing bar was lowered.

He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel impatiently, counting each train car as it passed by.

1, 2, 3… 17, 18… they would be trapped there for the rest of their lives.

"Peeta?" Her hand covered his and he would have jerked it away if the contact hadn't left him immobile.

Reluctantly, he turned to face her. She was looking at him with wide, glassy eyes, the same color as the silvery moon. He opened his mouth to say something, anything really, but the words failed to form. Not that it mattered. Barely a fraction of a second passed before her lips were on his. Her mouth slanted against his, coaxing his lips apart to touch her tongue to his. He strained against the center console, his fingers untangling her braid when they carded through her hair. He could have been lost in that moment forever, and maybe he was, because soon there was a blaring car horn behind them, disrupting their embrace.

The train was long gone, the light above green, and for once in his life, Peeta Mellark knew how to proceed to the other side.


End file.
